


What Doesn't Kill You (Now Will Kill You Someday)

by coffeehousehaunt



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Azgedakru, Betrayal, Character Death, Gen, Guilt, Octavia-centric, Other, S3 Speculation, Skaikru, Spec!fic, Torture, Trikru, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 17:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3658548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeehousehaunt/pseuds/coffeehousehaunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This isn’t just war. It’s <i>extermination</i>. But you never got that, did you? You never cared about the big picture.”</p><p>Giant flashing TW for torture/torture references.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Doesn't Kill You (Now Will Kill You Someday)

“Meet me in the Vale,” Bellamy catches her arm one day in camp, whispers. “At the drop ship.” 

That’s when she knows. 

The Vale--the Veil--is still forbidden to the Trikru; or at least, they’ve mostly retreated since the last band that the Ark survivors came across were nearly butchered. They would’ve been, too, if Kane hadn’t intervened. They can’t survive open war with the Trikru, he reminded them. 

No one’s seen Clarke in weeks; looks like she ran away and hid, maybe for good. Octavia wants to be angry, but as the weeks go by, she finds it dulling into a sort of raw disappointment that dawns brighter and brighter every day. That’s it; that’s all there is to Clarke. Cowardice and fleeing. 

That blue gets a little less spectacular by degrees; the spines of the mountains dull. Even the fighting, the stab of adrenaline, the leap of the fire, the black of the ash. It bleaches. 

Still, even on the way there, she catches herself scanning for a dwelling, signs of a camp, anything. 

Nothing. _Typical_. 

She counts no more than three people at the drop ship--Bellamy, a man with a thick beard and furs, and a woman who somehow seems to take up more space than both of them, despite her wiry build; she’s easily as tall as Bellamy. She looks healthy, but there’s a brittle, bitten edge to her that Octavia recognizes all too well from the prisoners held in Mount Weather. 

Kane and Abby step out from another part of the clearing. Octavia’s blood starts to sizzle. 

She doesn’t hear the words; she’s not really paying attention. But she doesn’t have to--she can hear the sound of her heart pounding, her back straight, her limbs strong and singing. The sound of war. 

Kane seems confident, pleased; Abby less so. Her eyes are tight, she shifts on her feet. 

“We can’t tie ourselves to them again,” Kane is saying, “We can’t trust them. And even if _we_ did, we would be facing a revolt.” 

“People are angry,” Bellamy is saying, “And they have every right to be. This is _our_ home now, too.” 

“We’re only lucky that we haven’t had more open violence.” Kane agrees. “I can’t hold the people in check much longer.” 

The woman spits. “The ice is treacherous, but we do not abandon our allies.” 

Abby tenses, then nods; relaxes, and it’s done. 

***

Lincoln doesn’t like it. Actually, Lincoln is furious. 

“They massacred entire _villages_. And they’re as treacherous as the mountains they come from. She can’t be trusted. None of them can.” 

“And Lexa can be?” 

Lincoln spits at the mention of her name. “Your leaders are in over their head. They should stay out of Grounder politics.” 

“Lincoln,” She catches his arm, “Where will we go? We need allies to survive on the ground, and we can’t be at the mercy of the Trikru after they betrayed us like that.” 

“Then we leave.” Lincoln says. “We go somewhere else, and take our people with us. Follow Jaha. They can’t win, Octavia.” He puts his hand on her shoulder, almost pleading. “No matter which leader is victorious.” 

She shakes him off. “I can’t believe you want to run away.” 

“You don’t understand the game you’re playing,” He says, “None of you do.” 

***

They make their first move at night; Kane and Abby are not informed, but are invited to a meeting instead. 

It goes wrong. One of the teams on the far side botched the approach, and the scream from the watchman echoes through the entire valley. The camp is boiling in an instant. What should’ve been a strategic, surgical strike becomes a pitched battle, and they have too few men. Octavia is their only advantage in this terrain. 

Octavia circles around. Lexa will be at the center of it, she knows--if she hasn’t already fled. 

She hears footsteps, and follows; thinks she sees what could be two, maybe three figures, cloaked, fleeing through the woods. 

_There you are._ She pounces. _You have a lot to answer for._

“ _Octavia?_ ” 

“ _Clarke?_ ” 

Clarke looks at her, and Octavia watches her expression dissolve from shock to disbelief to happiness to awful realization, while Octavia tries to remember how to move, the moment sharp like a knife tracing her nerves. She says the only thing that will break the spell. 

“You’ve been here this whole time? With _Lexa_?” 

“You’re attacking the Trikru?” Clarke asks, but it's not as surprised as it maybe should be. 

There’s a sound of steel being drawn, and Octavia sees Lexa. 

“Clarke, get out of my way.” Octavia tightens her grip on her sword, but Clarke stays firmly between them. 

“No. You don’t know what you’re doing, Octavia.” 

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” She says, “I just didn’t think you were _this_ weak.” 

“Let her try.” Lexa’s voice comes, cold as the ice. “If she can.” 

“Lexa, this is insane.” 

“No, Clarke, this is war.” The next is directed at Octavia, bitten hard. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.” 

“Your loss, Lexa.” Octavia pointedly drops her title. 

Insanely, she just wishes Clarke would get out of the way before the Azgedakru scouts find them. 

“Clarke, we must go.” Lexa acts like Octavia's not even standing there with a goddamn _sword_ in her hand. 

“You’re just gonna run again? Leave your people to die?” Octavia chokes up on her sword, squares up her stance. Delay. Delay. She can’t take Lexa alone. “You two-faced _coward_.” 

Lexa looks at her, and even in the dark, Octavia can feel her sneer. Her knuckles tighten painfully. “I have better things to do tonight than kill children,” Her voice comes low and quiet, “But next time we meet, Octavia, your brother will wish you’d run.” She steps closer, and Octavia chokes up on the sword, tenses; she wouldn’t be so lucky as to have Lexa just step into her reach, though. “And then I’ll kill him, too. For bringing the Azgedakru down on my people a second time? He will suffer ten times what was in store for the boy Finn.” Lexa’s voice drops deadly low. “This I swear.” 

“You will wish, Octavia, that I was less true to my word.” 

“ _Lexa!_ ” Clarke hisses, horror in her voice. 

Lexa is within reach, but Octavia can’t move. White boils in her skull; static and light and rage. Sees Finn tied to his post. Sees Bellamy in his place. His mouth pried open until the corners of his mouth split and the knife carving out his tongue. A tremor runs through her, but it’s not fear, or doubt, or anything human. 

An arrow whistles just past Lexa’s head, and there’s shouting. Octavia remembers to swing, but it’s too late. 

Lexa grabs Clarke’s arm. “Run.” And just like that, they’re gone. The scouts are closing from the east and northeast, but they’re running dead south, as far as she can tell. Someone will have to cut them off. 

Octavia sprints parallel to them, white pulsing in her muscles, straight ahead and up the hill. There’s a fallen log just ahead that’s caught up against another living tree; she's familiar with the area. She runs up that, uses her left hand to swing around the living trunk for momentum, and launches herself back down the hill. She sees Bellamy’s face, slashed, disfigured beyond all recognition, dripping blood. The knives, heated red-hot, sliding through the opened skin. 

She hits one of them, in a tangle of limbs and steel and confusion. A knife flashes in the dark; she takes the blow on one forearm, a numb-hot presence in her skin. Octavia rears back and stabs down; the blade sinks through flesh, bites into the earth. She drives it in as hard as she can and twists. Sees strips of Bellamy’s flesh flayed from his body and tanned like trophies. 

Then she sees the blonde. 

***

Finally, they’re pinned up against the foot of a mountain, a sheer cliff face, and they have to turn and fight. 

“We can lead the charge.” Bellamy says, and Octavia’s chest echoes; but it’s all sort of flat, now. A dull, slow realization; she pays more attention to the bleached light streaming over the mountains. The sun’s coming up on the waste. 

Echo nods. “Your people may have their revenge.” 

They’re closing, running full-tilt towards each other, when she hears it. 

A rumbling, so loud Octavia’s ears can’t even perceive it, at first. She doesn’t stop until she stumbles, and then she realizes that’s not adrenaline, and she didn’t trip--

The ground itself is shaking. 

It’s nearly silent, but a plume of snow and ice catches her eye, and the flare of fire and ash--blood. She looks; it’s all around her. Geysers of snow and fire, dazzles of blood and gore. Exploding with no more sound than an airlock blowing out. 

There’s a crackling sound, and the snow gives under her feet. Everything tilts crazily, her hands grabbing fistfuls of snow, scraping bloody, heedless of the cold stabbing into her fingers. She hacks into it with her knife, pierces deep and hears a grating sound. Not snow--ice. 

They mined a glacier. _Echo_ mined a glacier. And then sent them to trip it. 

The chunk she’s clinging to swings down like a hinge with a massive _crack_ , and for a moment she’s dangling nearly vertical from the ice by the handle of her knife while dozens of bodies, Ark soldiers, Azgedakru and Trigedakru, slide past her over the edge. Then, with another _crack_ and a jerk, she’s dumped into the dark with so many other bodies. Everything is blue, and blue, and then black. 

***

She comes back to numbness. A stinging in her cheek. She thinks she has her arms curled up over her head to protect herself; but she can barely move. 

She tries to uncurl, and can’t. Her eyes fly open. 

The snow is red. Painted down the sides of the chasm, soaking the loose snow around her. Glittering wetly in the dark. 

Is it all hers? 

She tries to raise her head, and then realizes something’s pinched between the edge of the ice and the wall of the chasm. Blood cakes the back of one hand, the leather on her arm. She reaches up to touch her face, feels something flake; something thick and cold on her fingertips, and fire covers the left side of her face, shoots up to the top of her head and all the way down her neck. 

It takes her some time to work her clothes free without tearing them--exposure is just as deadly as a sword at this point--and when she does, she sees the other body--bodies, actually. Pinned between the edge of what was the ground and the wall of the crevasse. Some chopped in two by the force. 

Some still alive. The close, still air in the crevasse is filled with the sounds of dying. 

She almost doesn’t hear the second rumble through the hair-raising sound, but when she does, she turns and sprints for the edge of the ice, and jumps. Hopes it’s not a long fall. 

***

It’s no use trying to dig her way out. The snow just gives way to more snow, snow packed with chunks of ice; the only reason why she has any air at all is because of the giant plate of ice over her head, which could give way at any minute. Who knows how many tons of snow are on top of it. Octavia hacks at the ice until her sword and all her knives are dull. After that, she starts kicking. Hell, she starts _blowing_ on it. 

She’s barely made a dent. 

Eventually, she realizes she can’t catch her breath. She’s familiar with the feeling, though it’s never been quite this acute. The air’s running out. She starts swinging her blunted knives again, chipping away as fast as she can. Her arms are numb; not with the cold, but with exhaustion. 

Her vision goes grainy, like a radio. A voice slides over the channel, a rattling laugh. “What’s the matter, Octavia? 

“Got betrayed again?” 

Clarke taunts, smirking, blood and foam dripping off her lips. Her fists are clenched inside Octavia’s lungs. Black spots are opening in her vision. 

“I’m not sorry,” She’s not sure if she’s saying it out loud or in her head, “I’m not sorry. You fucking _coward_.” 

Clarke keeps talking. “This isn’t just war, Octavia. It’s _extermination_. But you never got that, did you? You never cared about the big picture.” 

“Shut up.” 

Clarke moves to stand next to her, so Octavia has to see her, the blood and air bubbling around the blade. 

“Shut up? Is _that_ all you’ve got? Let me tell you what’s going to happen, Octavia. Today, Echo will have removed the Ark survivors _and_ Lexa, the two biggest obstacles to her domination of the southern forests.” 

She moves closer, until Octavia can smell the blood, hear the fluid gurgle in her lungs with every breath. “And you know what she’ll do next? She’ll slaughter the Trikru. She won’t just absorb them into her tribe; she’ll cleanse their lands completely and burn their villages to the ground. She’ll butcher their children, torture their healers. The people who took you in? Lincoln’s _family_? All those people who _didn’t_ betray you? She’ll make an _example_ out of them, to raise legends about her army and its might, how she conquered the Great Commander and how _she_ was chosen by the _heda_ ; it had been her all along. And then her people will move south, somewhere easier to live. And the other ten tribes will fall right in line, out of fear.” 

Clarke’s lips move against the shell of her ear, and Octavia bats at it wildly, bites to hold in a sound as she scrapes torn flesh and god-knows-what kind of wound. Somewhere, Clarke is laughing. 

“Jasper, Monty--Lincoln, _Bellamy_ ; all of them are dying. Maybe already dead. They’ve probably assassinated Kane and my mom, too. They’re both too smart to buy whatever story Echo tries to sell them. 

“And you helped her do all that. She needed a weapon, and you gave her one.” Her voice is as intimate as if she were still speaking right in Octavia’s ear. It turns biting, acid: “Congratulations.” 

Slowly, the ice grows thinner. There’s a dim kind of light on the other side; she thinks she can make out a person. She swings with renewed urgency, but her motions are coming sloppy and loose. But it’s definitely light there, and she can just make them out--curled up against the crevasse wall, one hand pressed to the ice--

Blonde hair. 

The ice turns glassy, and Clarke looks at her, confused, Octavia’s sword buried in her chest. She looks back and forth between it and Octavia’s eyes. Her mouth moves, and Octavia can’t hear it, but she can just make out the shape. 

“ _Octavia? Octavia, I’m scared._ ” 

Her eyes sting, but she doesn’t have the energy left to cry. She swings again, digging towards Clarke. 

Clarke looks at her blankly, and this time, Octavia hears that broken whisper: “ _Octavia?_ ” 

_I’m sorry_ , she thinks, once, and then she can’t stop. _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry._

Her legs give out, and then the knives fall out of her numb hands. It takes so much effort just to press one against Clarke’s, red through the ice. Maybe her mouth is shaping her apology, maybe it isn’t; but she hears it everywhere, looks at Clarke and sees it. 

Clarke’s face swims in her vision, her head tilted against the ice. Clarke’s eyes slide shut and her hand starts to drag down the wall. 

_I’m sorry._


End file.
